Two days ago I decided if I wasn't going to practice, I may as well do something I enjoy as sit around feeling guilty and miserable. Thus, I headed off to the rue des rosiers, and my favourite falafel shops and cute village-y streets. Unfortunately pretty much everything was shut as it was a jewish holiday, but one felafel shop was open and doing a great business in selling their (definitely inferior) falafels and shwarmas. My chickpea/vegetable/pita craving sort-of satisfied, I walked back towards the main train stations, only to see hundreds of barricades lining the roads and police on every corner for blocks. Everyone was curiously leaning on the barricades asking each other what was going on. Nobody seemed to know, and the police only said "its a ceremony" (at the Hotel de Ville). "A ceremony for what", someone asked. "A ceremony" the policeman replied brusquely. Just as I was about to walk away, about 20 policeman started up motorcycles and formed themselves into a formation to escort.... Nicholas Sarkozy!!! Not exactly my favourite person in the world, but hey, it was kind of exciting nevertheless to see him about 5 metres away; sitting in his car with the window down, smiling away and waving occasionally. Seems like someones enjoying things anyway...

(Off to spain tomorrow - yay!!! More things to do while feeling guilty about not practicing!)

After having lived in France for almost a year you would think the question 'do you know any french people?' would be redundant really. The fact that my mum asked me this, and the resulting pause kind of sums up my time here.

Not that not being friends with any french people is a bad thing.. on the contrary perhaps...

Last night I was in the kitchen, frying tortilla chips (that is, frying bits of tortillas to make tortilla chips), and another girl who lives on my floor was making guacamole. As she was leaving she gave me a bowl of the guacamole and I offered some tortillas, since hey, one good deed deserves another, and in fact tortillas go very well with guacamole! At that moment S came in and jokingly demanded why I was giving away our tortillas, and as I was preparing to figure out how to say in Spanish that she gave us some delicious guacamole, she jumped in, and said 'because we're friends!'. Which just melted my heart and reminds me why I love these people.

OK, I admit that not being able to give your name to the mobile-phone-customer-service-people is a little suspicious, and that a story involving presents from random south-americans is probably not going to put anyone at ease, but all the same: there is no need to accuse me of stealing my mobile phone and threatening to disable it!! Overreaction, people. Especially given that the only reason I called in the first place was because your stupid recharge card thingy didn't work. I am innocent, I tell you!

(For anyone interested, I really did get the phone as a present of sorts; the 2 mexican girls I lived with for my first month in Paris gave it to me when they went home.. and it had been given to them by another foreign student returning home a few months earlier. And who knows how many owners it had before that. And as for the name of the original buyer??? Your guess is as good as mine)

Sitting on a park bench in Montmartre with someone you love, in freezing temperatures with sleet blowing into your face, and tearing apart a scorching-hot roasted chicken with your bare hands is such an exhileratingly stupid thing to do it's fantastic!

Just the kind of therapy you need after spending exorbitant amounts of money on clarinet reeds. Again.

I seriously cannot believe how many people have told me I don't have an Australian accent. This seems to be a particularly common remark from English people, which is weird, because I obviously don't sound like them, so where exactly do they think I come from? And what are Australian people meant to sound like? Huh? And just in case I had picked up odd accent/grammar mistakes, which I admit I probably have, I compared notes with an Australian boy I met here last week, and he had experienced the same suspicious looks. Which makes you wonder.

On the plus side, I have been told twice (before revealing my nationality) that I speak very good English. Which is good. I think.

(Yes, it really is past midnight, so if there are mistakes in this short and unimportant entry, I'm sorry. See what I do for you people?!)

One would tend to think that in 3 hours I could make a simple trip to the bank, the post office and buy mobile phone credit. But one would be wrong. On all three counts.

The bank was shut (no explanation, and it was only the particular branch that I needed to go to that was closed), the post office told me I had to go to the bank and when I finally found a kiosk that sold the right kind of phone credit, I duly scratched off the silver stuff only to find that the numbers were scratched off as well, and it was thus unreadable, and thus completely useless. I went back to the guy at the kiosk, who told me to go to the France Telecom shop, who told me to go back to the kiosk to get a receipt, which I did, and was then told I had to go the 'Orange' shop... at which point I came home, carefully controlling my anger and planning to finally do some practice, only to find the crazy Korean boy who started learning the piano three weeks ago and practices 4 hours every day (I am not kidding!), playing a Beethoven minuet in the common room.

Its quite amazing how vast the differences are between London and Paris, given that they are approximately the same distance apart as Sydney and Canberra...
For starters, there are so many English people there!! I know that seems embarrassingly obvious, but I'm talking here about the stereotypical English person.. the one we all scoff about in a kind-hearted manner, knowing they're not all like that.. pasty, a little plump, tea-drinking, chip-eating, basically ‘good chaps’.. there's something else as well which I can't quite put my finger on, some innate, indelible "Englishness". While I was on the train I kept myself amused playing "Pick the French/English person", which was quite amusing, but waayy too easy.

I will know for next time that: 6 hours sleep the night before + getting up at 5:30am + major strain strikes across Paris + finally arriving at the station for the Paris-London train and realising that I’ve forgotten my passport = STRESS!!!

And once I was finally safely collapsed into my seat I realised that: not having any English pounds + not knowing where the place I had to go was + not having a map + not having anyone’s phone number + not knowing what the time difference between London and Paris is + not knowing if my accompanist had received the music + not bringing a copy of the music = STRESS!!!

An experience not to be repeated.

On the plus side, I found an Australian shop near the Australian High Commission (where I was playing), and bought myself a ridiculously overpriced jar of vegemite. And a Caramello Koala. Which helped.